No Longer Bi-vocational

I guess I need to wrap up my sabbatical, seeing as it's now finished.

The idea of the sabbatical, as you may remember, was to make church work better for us as a family. That just didn't happen.

So I asked the band leadership to release me from my return date. Based on an understanding of sabbaticals that I did not know, we agreed that what I wanted was more like stepping down from the band, so that's what I did.

I'd be really interested to know what you all think of sabbaticals and how you'd define them. I don't usually ask for comments, but I'd really appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think on this one.

The main difference in what I was looking for and what I found, is that I have now come to a place of completely letting go of both my leadership role, my playing roles and my promise to return. Now, I have nothing.

Having been in this band for about 7 years, this is not a little scary! It is, however, exactly where I think I should be. I now understand that to lead a ministry which costs too much (IE family time or relational pressures) is to lead it badly. It is to model a type of leadership which is systematically dangerous, when taken to the nTh degree. It's very tempting to do this though; it's like getting too carried away on just one area. We do the same thing when we condemn homosexuals whilst forgetting what the bible says about loving people, but I digress...

In the meantime, God is showing me rather a lot through John Burke's book 'No Perfect People Allowed". More to come on that one. Work is busy but also a great place to be challenged and to grow. God is there too.

Most importantly, I am starting to see a shift in Sundays. We're getting better at how we do the practicalities, which impacts how prepared for the services we are. How the morning goes then affects the rest of the day. This Sunday was really good for us as a family.

I look forward to seeing what God does in this season.

Don't forget to post up below please!